Shock and vibration is increasingly acknowledged to be the source of unnecessary expense when drilling a well. Many companies are using exciters when drilling to extend horizontal drilling runs longer than can be done without exciters. However, the shock and vibrations produced by the exciters when in operation downhole can damage electronics in the drill string. Some companies have built shock and vibration monitors into downhole tools or have provided complete downhole subs that monitor environmental conditions downhole. But these tools are limited in usefulness, because they lack the flexibility that drilling and logging operators would like to provide environmental severity measurements at arbitrary places in a drill string without having to add an entire sub into the drill string.
In addition, some providers of downhole equipment provide their equipment on a rental basis, with charging based on hours of downhole operation of the tool. Such providers have typically had to depend upon accurate records being kept by the drilling operator of that usage, with little or no way to confirm the accuracy of the information provided by the drilling operator.